


At Last

by Doyle



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:57:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Doyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, was I supposed to seduce you? Really, Romana, you must write these things in the diary."</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Last

"You know," Romana said, arranging her skirts very properly as she reclined on the grass, "one of these days I'm going to get tired of waiting for you to seduce me."

The Doctor paused, mid-scone. For once in his lives he could think of nothing to say but "Oh, are you?" So he said that, and then remembered that he was talking with his mouth full, and K9 got terribly fussy about things like that. He swallowed before he went on: "Was I supposed to seduce you? Really, Romana, you must write these things in the diary. It's why we _have_ a diary. I can't remember every little job you want me to do around the TARDIS."

Romana's eyes narrowed, probably at her hypothetical seduction being called a 'little job', though possibly because he had just taken the last of the tea-cakes. "I'm surprised you need a diary, Doctor. You're always telling me how good your memory is. Superb, you said. Almost photographic, you said."

"I'm sure I've never said that. K9, have I ever..."

"Affirmative, Master."

Man's best friend, he thought. Man could keep it. "Ah, well, it's more of a paparazzi memory, really. Only photographic at inconvenient moments. And anyway, very handy thing to have around, a diary. You never know when you'll need to write down a splendid joke or get Cleopatra's autograph because certain people accuse you of name-dropping."

Charming woman, Cleopatra; elegant, regal, and she had declared his scarf a garment fit for the gods themselves. Though Romana hadn't liked her, now that he thought about it. She had bristled in her presence, and afterwards made disparaging remarks about the lingering smell of asses' milk. Something to do with this new seduction business, no doubt.

This needed talked out, but such things were not for the innocent ears of robotic dogs. The Doctor leapt to his feet and scouted around beneath the blossom trees for a fallen branch. "K9," he said, throwing the stick overarm, "fetch."

K9's ears spun in apparent incredulity. "Master?"

"Go on, you're not so old, I should be able to teach you new tricks. Go and get the stick and bring it back here."

"For what purpose, Master?"

"You'll enjoy it! Look around, this planet's flat as a duck pond, you can get some exercise. I didn't want to mention it, but you've been looking decidedly flabby around the sensors. Now, get the stick, there's a good dog."

"Yes, Master." K9 trundled away with a distinct air of disgruntlement that suggested he would be muttering under his breath, if he had breath.

"Was it a duck pond I meant or a mill pond?" the Doctor wondered aloud. Never mind; all impressionable pets were out of earshot. "Now, what's this business about me seducing you, hmm? Or you seducing me, I can't remember which way around you put it."

Romana jerked her chin away from him, arms folded and knees tucked beneath her. She looked like a small, cross child. Oh, dear.

"That's a very pretty dress," he wheedled.

She picked at the hem of her skirt. "Do you think so?"

"Oh, yes. As soon as I saw you in it, I thought, there's a dress with... er, oomph."

"Oomph?"

"Well, something very like oomph. Probably. You put it side by side with oomph and see if you could tell them apart, I bet you couldn't."

Romana, unlike K9, did have breath under which to mutter, and she did so.

The Doctor tutted. His vocabulary was impressive, but while he could order a meal in several hundred thousand languages and ask his way to the beach in approaching a million, he found himself unable to come up with an un-oomph word for her dress. It was a dress. What more could be said about it? Yes, it was the colour of the delicate cream flowers that grew all around them in the grass, but she could see that for herself, she had eyes, didn't she? And she did look lovely in it, he wasn't blind, but if went about making comment of it every time she looked beautiful he'd never be done talking and her head would be too big to fit in the TARDIS.

"There have been men interested in me, you know," she said, brushing a few blades of grass off the oomphy-dress in a way that made him notice, quite unintentionally, that it was quite sheer. Almost transparent. "That deposed prince we met on Halburten Nine-Alpha asked me to marry him."

"Prince Arfargle?" he scoffed. "He couldn't have been more than seventeen."

"So young and full of energy."

"He didn't have a chin. And not very much of a nose."

"Unlike some people," she noted, and he stroked his own ample nose, scowling.

"Marry Prince Arfargle? You'd have been stoving in your own brains from boredom before the end of the honeymoon, and you're only on your second regeneration, Romana, that's a lot of stoving."

"He was very pretty," she said obstinately.

"If you want pretty, marry a looking-glass. He had no imagination, no sense, no thought in his head except his kingdom - do you know, when I told him we travelled all over the universe he asked me why? Why!"

"Well, why do we?"

He was brought up short. "Do you know, I'm not sure."

Romana sighed, and when she leaned against his shoulder he knew he was forgiven for not sleeping with her, or asking her to marry him like a damn silly chinless prince, or whatever it was she was upset about. "Because we would be bored on Gallifrey. As bored as I would have been as Princess Romana, I suppose."

"Oh, I don't know. Pretty exciting place, Halburten Nine-Alpha, now that they're in the throes of that revolution..."

"Which you started..."

"Which I may have had some _minor_ role in, in some strictly observational capacity." He grinned down at her. After a moment, she grinned back, and he nudged her. "Any scones left?"

"No. I had the last one."

"Ah." He looked up at the sunshine filtering through the branches of the trees, the way the light played on her skirt. "K9 will probably be a while longer, don't you think?"

"I'd expect so. You did throw the stick a very long way."

"It's my bowling arm, you see. Did I ever tell you about the time I bowled a..."

"Yes."

"You didn't know what I was going to say."

"If it's about your silly cricket-game, I've heard it."

He would have pretended to sulk, but he was feeling contented and a bit sleepy and happy to lie beside Romana on the blanket, arm stretched around her, one hand idly playing with her hair. It was rare that they had a whole hour, he thought, where the universe, or at least some tiny fraction of it, wasn't ending. Not the sort of thing he'd like long term, of course, but there was no reason he couldn't enjoy the moment.

"What are you going to do," he eventually said, quite sure he already knew the answer, "on this day when you get tired of waiting for me to seduce you?"

She was suddenly above him, eclipsing the sun, and she was grinning, and as she leaned close he thought he'd never been so pleased to be proved right.


End file.
